pgvecto.rs is a Postgres extension that provides vector similarity search functions. It is written in Rust and based on pgrx.

[!NOTE] We have a new implementation VectorChord with better stability and performance. Users are encouraged to migrate to VectorChord. Check out the migration guide.

Comparison with pgvector

Checkout pgvecto.rs vs pgvector for more details.

Documentation

• Getting Started
  • Overview
  • Installation
• Usage
  • Indexing
  • Search
• Administration
  • Configuration
  • Upgrading from older versions
• Developers
  • Development Tutorial

Quick start

For new users, we recommend using the Docker image to get started quickly.

docker run \
  --name pgvecto-rs-demo \
  -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=mysecretpassword \
  -p 5432:5432 \
  -d ghcr.io/tensorchord/pgvecto-rs:pg17-v0.4.0

Then you can connect to the database using the psql command line tool. The default username is postgres, and the default password is mysecretpassword.

psql -h localhost -p 5432 -U postgres

Run the following SQL to ensure the extension is enabled.

DROP EXTENSION IF EXISTS vectors;
CREATE EXTENSION vectors;

pgvecto.rs introduces a new data type vector(n) denoting an n-dimensional vector. The n within the brackets signifies the dimensions of the vector.

You could create a table with the following SQL.

-- create table with a vector column

CREATE TABLE items (
  id bigserial PRIMARY KEY,
  embedding vector(3) NOT NULL -- 3 dimensions
);

[!TIP] vector(n) is a valid data type only if $1 \leq n \leq 65535$. Due to limits of PostgreSQL, it's possible to create a value of type vector(3) of $5$ dimensions and vector is also a valid data type. However, you cannot still put $0$ scalar or more than $65535$ scalars to a vector. If you use vector for a column or there is some values mismatched with dimension denoted by the column, you won't able to create an index on it.

You can then populate the table with vector data as follows.

-- insert values

INSERT INTO items (embedding)
VALUES ('[1,2,3]'), ('[4,5,6]');

-- or insert values using a casting from array to vector

INSERT INTO items (embedding)
VALUES (ARRAY[1, 2, 3]::real[]), (ARRAY[4, 5, 6]::real[]);

We support three operators to calculate the distance between two vectors.

• <->: squared Euclidean distance, defined as $\Sigma (x_i - y_i) ^ 2$.
• <#>: negative dot product, defined as $- \Sigma x_iy_i$.
• <=>: cosine distance, defined as $1 - \frac{\Sigma x_iy_i}{\sqrt{\Sigma x_i^2 \Sigma y_i^2}}$.

-- call the distance function through operators

-- squared Euclidean distance
SELECT '[1, 2, 3]'::vector <-> '[3, 2, 1]'::vector;
-- negative dot product
SELECT '[1, 2, 3]'::vector <#> '[3, 2, 1]'::vector;
-- cosine distance
SELECT '[1, 2, 3]'::vector <=> '[3, 2, 1]'::vector;

You can search for a vector simply like this.

-- query the similar embeddings
SELECT * FROM items ORDER BY embedding <-> '[3,2,1]' LIMIT 5;

A simple Question-Answering application

Please check out the Question-Answering application tutorial.

Half-precision floating-point

vecf16 type is the same with vector in anything but the scalar type. It stores 16-bit floating point numbers. If you want to reduce the memory usage to get better performance, you can try to replace vector type with vecf16 type.

Roadmap 🗂️

Please check out ROADMAP. Want to jump in? Welcome discussions and contributions!

• Chat with us on 💬 Discord
• Have a look at good first issue 💖 issues!

Contribute 😊

We welcome all kinds of contributions from the open-source community, individuals, and partners.

• Join our discord community!
• To build from the source, please read our contributing documentation and development tutorial.

Contributors ✨

Thanks goes to these wonderful people (emoji key):

This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind welcome!

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the following projects:

• pgrx - Postgres extension framework in Rust
• pgvector - Postgres extension for vector similarity search written in C